


Frigga's Torment

by LeeMorrigan



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Movies), Thor - All Media Types, Thor Ragnarok - Fandom, Thor The Dark World
Genre: A Sister's love, Alternate Ending, Brotherhood, Death cannot win, Don't mess with mama, Flashbacks, Flashbacks of Odin and Frigga, Forgiveness, Frigga all mother, Frigga loves her sons, Frigga's heart, Love Conquers All, Magic, Mama vs. Death, Other, Prince Odin, Princess Frigga, Ragnarok, Redemption, Sisters, Valhalla, a mother's love, don't give up, mama bear - Freeform, why Hela hates Asgard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-04
Updated: 2017-10-19
Packaged: 2018-12-23 22:39:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11999391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeeMorrigan/pseuds/LeeMorrigan
Summary: Frigga has always dreamed of a peaceful future where her elder son reigns as a good king with his brother at his side to see what Thor misses, while Thor would always keep Loki from spiraling into the madness and loneliness he's prone to. However, Hela has a score to settle with the Queen of Asgard, and Death does not like to be cheated.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own Marvel or any of the characters (because Frigga would have a bigger role & still be alive if I did, plus she'd make Thor & Loki hug it out, then Gibbs-slap Odin).  
> Hela's movements/etc. based off the idea of her being a slithering villain and I do not know enough about Norse mythology beyond how you get to Valhalla, and I have not seen RAGNAROK so I'm guessing about all of this. I'm also guessing about Loki, since ULTRON gave me the needed info for Thor and Erik. I also don't know the exact age-difference between Thor and Loki, I guessed Thor had to have been young enough not to question that Frigga was never pregnant, and Loki just showed up.  
> Timeline: After THE DARK WORLD, through AGE OF ULTRON, and just before RAGNAROK.  
> Thank you, and please enjoy!

Frigga smiled, watching the scene below her. Thor, her eldest and Odin’s heir, stood tall and proud before the golden assembly below. He was king. The crowned gleamed upon his head, as though made just for him and not having been resting on another’s head only moments earlier. He held the staff that had once belonged to Odin’s father, and his father before him. 

Glancing a bit to her left, she saw her beloved prince. Her Loki. He stood just as proud beside his brother and king. He was also smiling, a rare sight to her eyes. Despite their differences, he loved his brother and was happy to see him taking their father’s throne. His love for his brother and his home had him standing there in his best attire, all gold and green, cutting quite the figure of a prince.

Frigga let out a sigh, a weight lifted from her chest. For so many years she had worried about this day. Odin paid so much attention and lavished so much of his time and pride on Thor while leaving Loki in their shadows. She had worried bitterness might take root in her younger son’s soul. She could not bear that. Not when he was so tender, so thoughtful, and so sensitive. The very thing that made him so good at reading and understanding the people around him not only made him a great strategist but also left him extremely open to hurt. A small slight left a large cut in him.

Odin had so taken over the tutoring and preparing of Thor when the boy reached a good age for sparring and horseback riding. Loki had been left to Frigga’s care. There had been more reasons than Loki ever knew, though she believed he suspected some of them enough. He never knew it was partly due to his heritage, as Frigga was much better equipped to hide his slips he had when he was younger. She also had a great deal more patience in her teaching. Odin only needed to be able to guide Thor a bit as tutors taught the future king how to handle his weapons and to ride, knowing the boy would have advisors who could speak all the foreign languages and who would help him with any strategizing and such. Loki, with his great affinity for magic and an ease with it that had him constantly doing accidental magic, needed a more attentive, patient hand attending him.

It had been a full-time appointment, looking after Loki when he was still too short to see over the back of a horse. He would use his magic to play pranks, from turning Thor’s practice sword into a cloud of bubbles or causing the dinner plates to float above the table just as everyone sat down. Sometimes he used it by accident, even after becoming a teenager. There were still scorch marks in the floor of his bedroom from a particularly nasty nightmare he had shortly before his 14th birthday. Frigga had never told Odin about that incident.

Gazing below, she smiled with tears stinging at the corners of her eyes. Her boys had each other. Odin, for years, had expressed concerns over Thor’s brash nature and his tendency to think he could beat down every threat, with his hammer and his might. He worried over Thor’s temper, despite it clearly having been inherited from Odin. Frigga had her own fears regarding those traits, however she knew Thor had a counter-balance. Loki. Where Thor was brutish in his solutions, Loki was diplomatic. Where Thor believed he could stand tall and wave the hammer until someone gave him an excuse or they backed off in fear, Loki knew the value of well-paced and precise wording. Thor had a large heart, which was part of that temper, as he was explosive in his anger towards anyone that would threaten what he held dear. Loki was a harder read and kept his heart more guarded, leaving his anger to be the slow and calculating kind.

Despite what some may have thought, whenever Frigga pointed out how well Thor would govern with his more rational brother at his side, she did not train Loki just to be her elder son’s councilor and cooler head. Loki suffered in silence and often without giving any hint to the source of his suffering, except a slight uptick in his sarcasm’s bite. Thor, for all his lack of sensitivity with most people, had always been better with Loki. Ever since they were little, when Thor had barely been out of nappies and Loki a babe in Frigga’s arms, Thor had made himself Loki’s guardian. Self-appointed and protective to a fault. If you were to so much as look at Loki in a way Thor did not care for, you would suffer for it. 

Frigga still recalled an incident with a tutor who had dared call Loki a pathetic weakling. The tutor had needed three healers to tend the wounds to his nose and his knee. Odin had punished Thor for not-getting an adult and for being so violent with an adult he was meant to bend to the will of. Loki had tried to defend Thor, earning himself a tongue-lashing from Odin before Frigga had been alerted and was able to intercede. She had dessert sent up to the boys’ rooms that night, before discussing with Thor that he should have come to her though she praised his willingness to stand up for his baby brother, and she thanked Loki for standing up to his father for his brother and having Thor’s back.

These were her boys. All the years of worrying, sleepless nights, breaking up fights, trying to ease Odin’s punishments, and explaining the unexplainable, had led to these two fine, good men now being in charge of all of Asgard. Frigga’s shoulders felt lighter than they had since before she married Odin. King Thor and Grand Prince Loki. Her sons.

Suddenly, she was smashed back into a hard, cold surface. She panted for breath, feeling the frigid air stinging her lungs and burning her throat. Her whole being ached. She opened her eyes to see a large, empty chamber. No. She focused. Not empty. There were a few others, like her, stuck to grey marble slabs as if held there by invisible bonds of the strongest iron and steel. Many were moaning or crying out, a few were silent while trembling. 

“You’ve woken, my Queen.”, came a smooth, eerie voice.

“We’ve waited a while for you, my Queen.”

Frigga let out a slow breath. Loki may have been the silver-tongued wordsmith of legend, although it had been Frigga who was his teacher. Volstagg would say she had an excellent face for gambling. She would not let this vile creature have the best of her.

“Why so silent, my Queen? Have you felt so much pain as to have robbed you of your reason? Or at least, your eloquence of speech?”

The voice laughed. Frigga’s spine went cold. She knew that laugh. Better than she knew the voice.

“Hela.”

That laugh again, though slower and more forced this time.

“Yes, my esteemed Queen. I am glad to see you have not lost your reason. Yet.”

The vile creature came into Frigga’s line of sight as she twisted her body to the side and over the edge of Frigga’s body. She almost looked as a lizard half-turned back on itself. Frigga felt the urge to back away. She would not have, even had she been able to move. Those blue, cold, wild eyes looked back at her. Even Loki, while under the possession of Thanos, had not looked so insane.

“Now, dear Queen, I should properly welcome you. Your roommates have all been waiting… forever, to see you.”

That laugh, cold as death’s embrace. Frigga wondered if those sent far from the halls of Valhalla, knew that laugh as Hela took them. Idle thoughts for a dead Queen, she supposed. Hela leaned closer, the coldness of her breath prickling the skin of Frigga’s cheek.

“You once promised me that you would protect me from Odin’s wrath. Well, my Queen, you failed. You chose your son over your oath to me. You made an oath to me, Frigga! You swore you would protect me!”

Frigga let out a breath. It seemed that was why she was here. She had owed the goddess of death and Death would collect. Otherwise, having died protecting an innocent, Frigga should have found herself wondering the halls of Valhalla. She had expected to be there now, looking down on her sons. She had not thought she would end up here, tortured with images of a peaceful life her sons would never know. The one she had dreamed for them since they first rested in her arms.

“What? No formulated response meant to ease your way out of this, to make me grant you absolution so you may pass to Valhalla, a clean, renewed soul? I’m disappointed. I suppose dying must have been harder on you than I expected. Was it because you did not die protecting one of those precious fools? What were their names again? Throp and Lucy? Oh, no, Thor and Loki. Thor- Odin’s golden son, and Loki- the apple of the Queen’s eye. It must hurt you, more than anything I could do to you in here, to know that they are out of your reach… out where you… can’t protect them.”

The snake leaned closer to Frigga’ ear, nearly whispering as she added, “Can’t protect them from me.”

Frigga cast her eyes to meet those of her captor. She would not let this creature beat her.

“You cannot leave this realm, and certainly not to visit Asgard. Odin, Thor, and Loki- everyone, believes me to be in Valhalla. They will not come here to seek me out.”

She turned her head to face forward, staring straight up or forward, it was hard to tell. There was so little to orient herself with and even less that she felt she could rely on to tell her the truth.

“Ah, but my Queen, I have had a long, long, immeasurable time to think of time to think about this. To ponder how I will get out. How I will enact my revenge against Odin. Against Asgard.”, she leaned till her nose almost touched Frigga’s ear. “Against you.”

Frigga wanted to pull away from the infernal slab and tear out the eyes and throat of the despicable creature threatening her sons and her husband. Dead or not, she was still their mother and she still would fight with all she had, to protect them. Instead, she was left there with only her internal battle. Hela smiled like a cat watching the broken field mouse as it accepted that it would die at the hands of the cat. Frigga loathed it.

“Fear not, my Queen. Soon your children will be here beside you and they will not have to wait long before I fetch them for you. I may have to wrestle for Thor a bit, corrupt his soul enough to make him mine, but your precious second child, the dark prince, oh he will be mine the moment he gasps his last!”

Hela chuckled as she sauntered off, leaving Frigga to hear the echo bouncing inside her skull. She had to figure a way out of this. A way to the world of the living. Somehow, no matter what it took, she had to find a way to warn Thor and Loki. She needed them to know to stay away from Hela and to be mindful of her wrath. She was determined. She would find a way to warn them. Letting her breath slowly leave, she willed her thoughts to Heimdall. He could occasionally peer into the realm of the dead. Perhaps he could see her, just a glimpse of her, and allow her plight to be known. He would know enough to warn Thor and Loki, to have Odin on guard. She just prayed Heimdall would see her, and that he, Odin, the warriors three, and Sif could protect her sons. Frigga held onto the image of Heimdall even as her heart ached to be able to hold her sons in her arms and protect them as she did from the dark and monsters beneath the bed when her children were small. She was their mother and she would not leave them.

 

Meanwhile, in a glittering kingdom, a raven-haired man rested from expending his magic to hide his own visage from those around him. He twisted in his sleep. Thrashing and sweating profusely. He woke with a start, his voice hoarse as though he had been screaming for days and his muscles quivering. He panted. He could not speak or make his heart stop racing in his chest.

He had seen her, chuckling in his face and the most immense and indescribable pain in his soul as she looked at him with those eyes. Like a mad dog smelling blood, she was beyond insane. She wanted more than blood. She wanted suffering. Even without his time under Thanos’s thumb, he would have known that face. Though why he was dreaming of her now, he did not know. Then he remembered. The crushing weight of his grief settling down into his bones once more. Frigga. Mother. Gone.

Flopping backward to stare at the ceiling, he shuddered. He was thinking of death, the woman he cheated so many times and one of them so very recently, when his own mother had not been so lucky. Odin had once joked that Frigga was luckier than a constellation of shooting stars. It seemed her luck had run out at the worst of times. 

Loki still seethed. He preferred to blame Odin, Thor, even that tiny little mortal Thor was so enamored with. However, the truth was if had not been in that cell, he would have gone straight to Frigga when the alarm sounded. He always went to her when there was an alarm. Two beings with their power and their skill, made a formidable team. If he had been there, Frigga would likely still be among the living. Loki would give all of Asgard and any chance to rule it, to have her back. To have avoided her death altogether. 

 

Elsewhere in the universe, Thor stripped down and readied himself to enter the waters. Erik stood aside, more for moral support and a scientist’s curiosity than because he meant to be of any help. Anything that could give Thor pause would snap the middle-aged scientist like a dry twig. Wading in, Thor was determined. He would see the rest of that vision the witch had accidentally gifted him with. He would see his home.  
Heimdall’s eyes, white and blind. Scantily clad people, gyrating around to music Thor could not hear. Decay and death all about him, leaving the air putrid and thick. A cloaked figure moved around, always just out of Thor’s reach, at the corner of his sight. Heimdall reached for him, blaming him. All of this. It was his fault. He had failed to see a threat and all of Asgard paid the price.

Thor snapped out of the vision’s grasp though he was still seeing the echo-like pieces of the vision. He had sworn he heard Frigga’s voice, whispering his name. Whispering Loki’s name. He had often found himself believing he heard her voice when he was in a crowd, or that he saw her face around a corner when he entered her private garden. Anywhere that was strong with her essence, Thor felt as if she were still partially there.

Erik helped him up out of the water and to where Erik had apparently started a small fire off to the side, leaving Thor’s clothing beside it to warm. The last time someone had done that, he had been on a hunting trip with Loki and had fallen into a frozen lake. He had woken to find Loki sitting in his spare clothes, Thor’s spare clothing warm from having just been removed from the fire’s side to clothe Thor’s shivering frame, with he and Loki’s wet clothing hanging over the fire pit. Loki had dived in after him, pulled him to safety, then took care of him without ever seeming to suffer from the ice’s bite as Thor did.

Loki. It still ached in places Thor could not name, to think of his little brother. Sometimes he still saw Loki’s blood under his fingernails when he first woke from nightmares. Erik handed him a hoodie and some jeans. Thor slid them on numbly as he thought. He needed to get back to Asgard. He needed to speak to Heimdall. He failed to save his mother, to protect Loki. He would not fail Asgard as he had his family. He would save Asgard. Maybe then he could sleep through the night without seeing Loki’s face as Loki called himself a fool. He would not fail this time.


	2. Frigga's Remorse/Hela's Change of Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frigga remembers her sister, Hela escapes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have not-yet seen RAGNAROK so I am taking a bunch of shots in the dark, and I admit, I accidently wrote an ending for RAGNAROK while I was just trying to figure out a way to bring Frigga back into the THOR movies. Bvita, Ishari, and Tscalla are my own characters, otherwise everybody belongs to Marvel.

Frigga was excited as she raced down the stairs, her dress flying behind her almost like a cape. Their father was returning from the Capital and he always brought she and Hela the most amazing books when he returned. He was set to nurture their gifts, Frigga had some ability for Sight, as well as strong gifts for Healing and Shielding, while Hela was more of an elemental in her gifts, able to make the walls move or flowers bloom in the depth of winter. Frigga had spotted their father’s flags flying above the horses heading towards their home, which prompted her to run to the training room to tell Hela.

When she arrived, she was nearly knocked flat by a large brick flying through the air. Frigga deftly ducked it, nolonger alarmed or even surprised by levitating debris when Hela trained. Hela was seated on the floor, her legs crossed under her, eyes closed, lips in a tight line, sweat beading at her forehead, and her dress torn at the right sleeve.

“Hela!”

Her sister’s eyes flew open in alarm. She rose to her feet and was halfway to Frigga before Frigga could blink.

“Frigga, are you alright?”

Frigga smiled, almost bouncing on her feet.

“Father is coming!”

Hela’s face shifted from worry to amusement. Things between Hela and their father had grown strained as Hela’s powers emerged to be stronger than Frigga’s or their mother’s. However, she was nearly as in love with books as Frigga.

“Come on! He’ll be here in a few minutes!”

As Hela was rushing up beside Frigga, Frigga stopped them dead for a second, then changed direction. They were suddenly heading towards Frigga’s room instead of the front gates.

“Where are we going?”

“We need to put a robe over you so Father doesn’t see that torn sleeve, or you know how he will be.”

Hela smiled. Frigga was always looking after her, to the point of using her own magic to fix or hide the damage Hela had done in practice, so their father would not know.

They arrived at their destination. Frigga locked the door behind them before diving into her wardrobe. Within seconds, she had found a pale green robe to place over the dark emerald dress Hela already wore with shimmering spring green stitching on the black belt at her waist. The belt had been a gift from Frigga, embroidered by her own hand, without magic, and gifted to Hela on her most recent birthday.

The robe now hiding the evidence of a mishap in the practice room, Frigga smiled and gripped Hela’s hand once more, glee in her eyes. They were off, running for the front gates to greet their father. Frigga could not wait to see what books they would be getting this time, and what new skills she and Hela might learn in the weeks to come.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Frigga started, the cold and stagnate air burning her lungs and making her head swim for a moment. She was back on the stone slab. In Hela’s domain. She let out a breath, her head falling back onto the unforgiving stone. Her mind seemed determined to torture her worse than Hela had.

Frigga settled back, trying her best to think of a way to get out of this. She needed to get to Thor, Loki, and Odin. They needed her, even if they were not yet aware of it. Hela would wreck her havoc and there would be no Frigga to stay her wrath.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Frigga sat looking gloomily over at the large dress her mother had brought in for her an hour ago. She was supposed to be trying it on, the ladies in waiting standing outside the door just waiting for her to call them in, and that dress just mocking her. A wedding dress. A royal wedding dress.

There was a slight knock at the door. Frigga told the person she was not yet ready for her ladies to come in. She let out a sigh. A royal wedding dress, and it was not disappearing by her glaring at it. Then there was a creaking sound and the little door between Hela’s room and Frigga’s, swung open.

“Frig?”

Hela must have been worried. She hadn’t called Frigga by her pet name since they were little girls. Very little. Frigga looked up at Hela and it was as if her sister just Knew. Mind reading wasn’t a skill either possessed, although they rarely needed it when they were together.

“That the dress?”

Frigga nodded. Hela came over to sit beside her. Hela eyed the dress with suspicion and as if she expected some sort of angry ghost to spring forth from it.

“I could make it burn the fingers of the women who dress you. Maybe they’ll think it’s cursed and Father will end the marriage contract?”

“A nice plan except for one thing.”

“Yes?”

“Father is determined we shall marry up and make the family be greater.”

“Then let him marry the spoiled prince.”

Frigga smiled, despite herself. Hela always was the more bold of the two. Leaning over, Frigga let her head rest of Hela’s shoulder. Hela felt a bit thin and boney under Frigga’s cheek.

“Have you been neglecting yourself again, sister?”

Hele made a face that let Frigga know the answer. Hela’s powers had increased as they grew up, outpacing Frigga easily, as well as all their tutors and their mother. Her powers were also wild and chaotic, causing her to accidently lash out with them when she was upset, having nightmares, startled, or angry. Because of this, their father had been insisting Hela practice on the other side of the house, away from the bedrooms, kitchens, and where guests might see her. Frigga was still hiding a healing wound on her shin from Hela accidently shattering a nearby table, causing it to explode in the room she and Frigga had been practicing in.

“I have a plan.”, Frigga announced to her sister. Hela arched an eyebrow as she turned her head to listen.

“I’ll try on the blasted wedding dress and let mother’s ladies fuss over me for a bit, and when they are finished, we will sneak into the orchard, climb trees, eat fruit, and pretend we are still wee children. Then you’ll be hungry enough at dinner, and actually fill your stomach.”

Hela let out a small growl.

“I would still prefer to curse the dress.”

Frigga smiled.

“I know, although it would likely just anger Father and do nothing to end the marriage contract. I would not have you in trouble on my behalf.”

Hela nodded glumly as Frigga gave her a quick hug, then got up to open the doors to her mother’s ladies. For the next two hours, they tugged and toyed with the dress, making it fit Frigga perfectly. Then they began to play at her hair, trying to figure out which elaborate style they should put it up in. Finally, she had endured enough wedding preparation and sent the ladies away, feigning a nervous stomach. Once they were gone, she turned to Hela with a wicked grin.

“Let us make haste! To the orchard!”

Hela linked arms with her and they took off, down the back stairs towards the back gate. They were in the garden a few minutes later, the orchards in sight as they heard their father shouting for Frigga. Frigga pretended not to hear him and whispered that they would say Frigga wanted to go to the orchard for some fresh air, after the dressing fitting had upset her stomach.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Frigga’s wedding day had come and gone, Hela at her side through all of it until the wedding night required their separation. Frigga had awoken the next day, excited to go spend that day with Hela as Odin was required at some meetings with his father, the King. Frigga did like her new husband and he had been very sweet on their wedding night and had been patient with her, but she now wished for her sister.

Outside, Frigga found a lady coming up with a tray of breakfast for Frigga laid out on a golden tray. This was still too fancy for Frigga. She longed for her old room, the sparse practice area for she and Hela, and the little orchard she and Hela hid out in when their parents’ expectations weighted too heavily.

“Princess Frigga! You are awake, allow me to help you dress once you’ve eaten?”

Frigga smiled at the girl.

“What is your name?”

“Bvita, your highness.”

“Bvita, you may call me Frigga when we are alone. I do not require breakfast or help in dressing this morning, although I do have a request.”

The servant nodded, still seemingly stunned.

“Could you please tell me where my sister is? I have need of her company, though I have lost track of where they assigned her quarters.”

The servant looked almost panicked. Frigga’s stomach dropped.

“Your parents and sister have already left to return home, your hi… Frigga. They left at dawn.”

“Thank you.”

Frigga turned back into her room, which she would share with Odin, their bedrooms each going off from the shared sitting area. It took her a few minutes, yet she soon located what she needed to write her father a tersely worded letter. She was a married woman now, and princess to boot, she ought to be able to speak to her father as one adult to another rather than as his scared little girl.

In the letter, she made it clear she had expected to find them to be able to speak with her mother and sister after her wedding night. That there were things a new bride wished to speak to her female kin about in the light of day, and yet she had been denied this by her father’s desire to return home in such haste. She left out that she was aware it was due to his fear Hela would embarrass them. 

Once the letter to him was completed, she wrote a short one to her mother, thanking her for advice she had given Frigga only two days earlier. Next, a lengthy letter to Hela. She spoke of how strange it was to be addressed by the new title, how patient and tender Odin had been- giving as many details as she dared without revealing too intimate a detail as she wanted Hela to know Odin was not as spoiled or hard as Hela took him for, of how mousy the servants were as if afraid she would strike them down, and how she missed sitting in the orchard with Hela. She also made it clear that she did not care who she had to beg, threaten, enchant, or order- Hela would always be a welcome guest, any time she wanted to come and visit Frigga.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Frigga found herself crying on her bed, clutching her pillow tightly. More accurately, the pillow Odin had used their last night together before he left with his father, to go fight in some realm Frigga could barely pronounce the name of. She was terrified he would never return to her. They had been married only a short time, however Odin had won her heart in that time, and given her his own in return.

Now her love was off at war, hardly his first though it was her first time bidding him goodbye for him to go off to it. She was also worried because the King was ill, so if he were to pass, Odin would instantly be King. This meant many of the politicians and higher nobles were like sharks, smelling blood in the water and circling. She was constantly barraged with those trying to curry favor for the inevitable day when she was Queen of Asgard.

Frigga was about to give into another bout of her tears when she heard someone knock at her door. She knew the knock, it was Bvita. Knowing the younger servant girl would worry if Frigga did not answer, Frigga bid her to come in. Bvita had already brought her soup and promised to sit up with her all night, if needed, not chastising her or any such thing over her tears.

Bvita poked her head in, her blonde braid falling over her shoulder as she offered Frigga a kind smile. It did make Frigga feel a bit less alone to know she had a servant who was beginning to feel more like a friend than a member of the help.

“Frigga, you have a guest.”

“I do not feel up to guests, Bvita. Tell them I am busy, or ill. Whatever will send them away.”

Bvita smiled wider.

“I doubt you would want me to send this guest away, Frigga.”

She stepped back before Frigga could stop her, then suddenly Hela came flying through the door to run up to Frigga’s bed, meeting Frigga in a fierce hug. Frigga hugged her sister back so tightly that she heard her joints pop. Frigga looked up just in time to see Bvita getting the door closed. She mouthed, ‘Thank you.’, to the servant girl, earning a wide smile before the door did close.

“I have missed you.”, Hela said. Frigga nodded.

“How long is Father allowing?”

Hela grinned.

“He is away. Mother said I might stay at least until he returns and sends word for me to come home, though if I do not have any incidents and I am of use to you, she may be able to talk him into letting me stay longer.”

Frigga wanted to dance with happiness.

“That is wonderful! I will show you all around!”

Hela lunged forward, hugging her again. It was then that Frigga noticed how thin her younger sister was, her bones sticking out even through the material of her dress and cloak. As she stepped back, she saw how sharp the bones in her sister’s shoulders looked over the neckline of the dress and how sunken her cheeks looked.

“Just how hard has Father been training you?”

Hela shrugged.

“I am well, sister. Now, let us have some breakfast as you fill me in on what you did not dare write in your letters. Has Odin’s kissing skill improved any?”

Frigga blushed as Hela removed her heavy cloak.

“You are quite naughty, sister. And yes, he has improved.”

Hela had stayed for nearly three months, without incident worth mentioning, and then their father called her back. Frigga knew he was worried the peace could not last and wanted Hela away from the eyes of the court when she lost control, as he was sure she would. And she did the day she arrived home, nearly destroying their father’s study as he had brought her in to inform her of the new house rules.

Odin returned briefly, with his father who was ill enough to need the Royal Healers. Frigga spoke to him of her father’s treatment of Hela. Odin was no more warm towards Hela than she was towards him, although he agreed that his father-in-law ought not have treated Hela that way as it was not helping Hela’s control. He also agreed to Frigga’s plan. Frigga helped take care of the King while Odin was in meetings and she did take a few of the meetings for Odin, to allow him some rest as well.

Once Odin and his father had gone again to the war, Frigga enacted her plan. She used the official royal scrolls and had a letter dictated to her father that he was to send Hela to Frigga as Frigga- Princess of Asgard- had need of Hela while the King and Prince were away. It was a way of giving her father a polite order to send Hela, one he could not easily dodge or decline.

A week later, Hela arrived by carriage to the palace. Frigga greeted her with another fierce hug, not caring if anyone was watching. Her sister was here and she would not allow anyone to steal her happiness from   
her. Hela asked, clearly concerned that Frigga had made such arrangements to get Hela there, about Frigga’s wellbeing. It was clear she was worried Frigga was with child or perhaps greatly ill.

“I have a surprise for you, sister. Come! Come!”

Hela followed her through the palace, and they arrived soon enough outside the door to the room Frigga had been preparing all week.

“Close your eyes.”

Hela complied and Frigga threw open both doors, leading her sister in a few steps before telling her to open her eyes. Hela’s face was worthy of a painting. 

“This is the royal library!”

“Yes, and you have full access any time you are here. I got Odin to make sure of it. No one will make you leave or keep you away from any section you desire to browse. Anything you want to read, you can.”

Hela was shocked.

“Odin helped? I thought he did not like me?”

Frigga shrugged.

“He understands that you’ve had it much the way he has, a father who heaps so much upon your shoulders. When I suggested it, he said he would make it happen.”

Hela nodded.

“He loves you so much, he would grant you anything. I doubt it had anything to do with some empathy he was feeling for me.”

Frigga shook her head.

“He is not made of stone, now come. I have more to show you! I have made sure all the scrolls and books I could find to help you, were brought here!”

~*~*~*~*~*~

Frigga coughed into the putrid, stale air. For a moment, she could not recall where she was or why she was here. Then she remembered. She was dead.

Her sons, as far as she knew, were not together and were still very much at odds. She hoped Loki had not been harmed in the jail break, although she was sure he used it to his advantage and escaped. Loki had always been crafty.

Settling back, Frigga closed her eyes and tried to think of a way out of here. With Odin needing the Odin-sleep more and more, Thor being so concerned over his mortal-Jane, and Loki being in the wind, Asgard was more vulnerable than it had been in an age or two. Worse, the three men who mattered most to her were in grave danger. Especially her sons. They had no idea of what lurked just out of sight, just beyond their reach. Odin knew.

Frigga breathed in. Breathed out. And then she concentrated. She could feel the edges of the prison Hela had been locked within for so long. This sort of thing had never been Hela’s strong suit, however Frigga had excelled at this type of magic. She could find barriers, sense shields, and often peer behind both.

When she was almost at the point of finding a seem in the barrier, one she might exploit and find a way past, her concentration was broken by Hela’s laughter. It was a cold, cruel laugh unlike the giggles of their childhood.

“Trying to find the weakness of the prison bars and escape to your precious Odin?”

She laughed again.

“It will not work, sister. I have you and you are stuck here with me, until the end of all things. Then, maybe, I will let you see Odin one last time before I destroy his very soul.”

Frigga found her soul was tearing just as her heart broke. Her sister was so warped and unlike the girl she had grown up beside. And Odin might well pay the price, as well as Thor and Loki if Frigga could not get word to them, for Frigga’s blindness in ages past.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

A year later, the war was over and the King had died. This meant that with Odin as the new King, making Frigga the new Queen of Asgard. As Queen, Frigga had more power and she was able to flex her muscles a little. She insisted that Hela be her chief adviser, so her family had to let her go and permit her to stay with Frigga.

For a long while, everything went well. Hela had almost no outbursts or incidents with her power, Frigga occasionally traveled with Odin to visit farther out places of the Realm, Hela and Frigga practiced together when Frigga was at the palace, Odin’s rule was well accepted by the people, and soon, Frigga learned she was to bear the future ruler of Asgard. 

Odin had been overjoyed and commanded a celebration, while Frigga only barely managed to have him hold off until she was sure the pregnancy would last. Even the Aesir were not immune to the common dangers of childbearing. Hela, however, was not as happy as many others had been at the news. In fact, when she learned of it, she caused every piece of furniture in the room to shatter. Frigga did not share that with Odin.

Frigga spent many an afternoon in meetings, her mornings were spent preparing for the birth and deciding on an appropriate name for the future ruler, her dinners beside Odin and Hela at the head table, and her evenings with Hela in the library or Odin in their rooms. 

She tried to see Hela whenever she could, but between the preparations for the celebration of a new heir and Odin needing her to handle meetings for him while he negotiated a treaty, Frigga did not have much time to spare.

Then, one evening, Frigga heard a small explosion. It had sounded almost like some of the early times Hela lost control and nearly took down parts of their home. Instantly, the hairs on Frigga’s arms and nape stood up, and she Knew.

“Oh Hela.”, she whispered as she stood, taking off for the practice area Hela had arranged for herself weeks ago. The closer she got, the more people she saw running the opposite direction, all of them in a panic. Frigga was determined to reach Hela before Odin or his guards did.

Upon arriving at what should have been Hela’s small practice ring, she instead found a crater. And at the center of that crater, an unconscious Hela in tattered, smoke-stained clothes. Frigga ran forward, heedless of the rubble around her or the dirt and soot staining her gown, falling to her knees to cradle her baby sister.

“Hela! Hela! Wake up! Hela!”

Hela’s large, luminous blue eyes opened but were not clear. She seemed to still be in the grey area between conscious and slumber. Frigga shook her sister, hoping to rouse her further.

“Come on! Hela, wake up! Please? Hela, please?”

Hela’s eyes became for focused and clear, moving to meet Frigga’s.

“Frigga?”

“Yes, yes, it is me. Hela, are you alright?”

Hela gave her a tired smile.

“I was working on a new spell. A protection one for… for you and the baby, and then, suddenly all I could think about was if the treaty fails and Odin has to leave, and you are alone when the baby comes and… then nothing.”

Frigga was scared to death of Hela’s magic, especially now when she worried her own child might end up like Hela, immensely powerful and not entirely able to control it. And seeing up close, how easily Hela lost control, did nothing to help Frigga feel better about Hela’s gifts.

“Come, we must get you to a healer. I do not like the look of those burns on your hands or the bruise on your shoulder.”

Frigga helped Hela up, Hela having to lean heavily on Frigga as they made their way out of the crater. When guards came up to them, reaching out, Frigga ordered them away. She asked for Bvita. She almost laughed when the young servant showed up instantly, most likely having run towards the blast the moment she realized Frigga was nolonger in her chamber.

“Bvita, please, help me with Hela?”

Bvita moved to place Hela’s other arm around her shoulders, her left arm snaking around the small of Hela’s back to help Frigga support Hela’s weight, while her right hand held Hela’s wrist in place so Hela would not sway or fall. It took them a good while to reach the Healer’s wing, and from there they were directed to wait until the Healers had finished. A couple came out to fuss over Frigga, worried she had overtaxed herself or that she may have strained muscles from carrying half the weight of her sister as well as her own child. Frigga sent them off.

Over an hour later, Odin arrived and bid Frigga to come outside with him to speak a while. Frigga turned to Bvita, seeing how worried the younger woman was. Bvita was the only other person who had taken to Hela and she was likely aware of Odin’s recent pleas with Frigga to send Hela away, fearing that Hela would harm palace staff, Frigga, or a visiting dignitary. 

“Bvita, if Hela wakes or the Healers have news, come find me so I may hear it straight away?”

Bvita nodded, staying seated. Frigga offered the girl a smile and a nod of her own, before turning to take Odin’s offered hand to help Frigga from her seat. She was just starting to be large enough that rising from low chairs was not a graceful affair. He then lead Frigga out to the garden where many of the healing herbs were grown for the Healers to use.

“What did Hela claim happened? Was she attacked?”

Frigga shook her head.

“She did not say much, she was delirious. She was practicing a spell to protect me and the child, then she had her thoughts wander a bit, and suddenly everything went black. That is all she said. I do not know if she was interrupted, if she blacked out, or if perhaps one of the enchanted items she uses to help her concentration, simply faltered on her and caused her spellwork to collapse.”

Odin paced a bit, till Frigga stopped him with a hand to his shoulder. She had not had the morning illness many women complained of, though she was not as strong in the stomach as she previously had been, when it came to moving objects and spinning in circles. Hela had learned that the hard way while pacing before Frigga a few weeks earlier.

“She must leave. Unless we learn that it was, indeed, som sabotage or interruption, she needs to be gone, Frigga. She cannot be here, causing explosions. What if she had hurt someone? What if she had killed a servant or guard who merely meant to check on her, and accidently interrupted her spellwork? Could you live with that? Could she?”

Frigga was loathe to admit it, her husband had a fair point. It would have made Hela heartsick to have harmed someone and Frigga would fair no better knowing she could have prevented it and did not. Leaning back against a nearby wall, Frigga felt tears stinging her eyes. She did not wish to send Hela away, as that is what their father would have done in her place, nor did she wish to endanger anyone in her quest to protect Hela.

“Perhaps there is some sort of compromise to be reached?”

Odin arched an eyebrow at her, his pale blue eyes confused but patient. He understood that, until he and their child, Hela had been the single most important person in Frigga’s world. For all his faults, jealousy was not among them. He would not begrudge Frigga the comfort of her sister, if not for the danger Hela’s untamed power was the cause of.

“Such as?”

“You still have the house you allow dignitaries to use, just outside of the city walls, do you not?”

“Yes, though it is somewhat small, not as large as the estate you and Hela grew up on.”

“Big enough for one woman and her carefully selected staff. I could make sure that only people who are willing, and who have been instructed in serving one with her power and one who is still learning to navigate that power, are with her. I could visit her, as the trip would not be long, and after the child is born I would not be far from here when I went to visit. And I am sure, once things have settled a bit with this treaty and the birth, Hela’s control will be better.”

Odin gave her a soft smile. Frigga could sense that he was not entirely happy with her solution, though she believed she had won this battle. Perhaps it would actually do Hela some good as well, to be a step removed from the palace life. A bit less pressure to be perfect, something Frigga would envy.

“I will send word in the morning, to have it readied for Hela’s arrival once she is well. Until then, she needs to stay in the Healer’s ward and not to use her magic.”

“Thank you, my love.”

He smiled at her.

“I do not wish to do anything that would bring your sorrow, my Queen, however I must safeguard the people around her as well.”

Frigga nodded. She knew what it was to be torn between two different duties. She walked that line constantly, first between her parents and Hela, then between her father’s wishes and her own heart, then between Odin and Hela, and now between being a wife and mother- and being a sister. She could not fault Odin’s concern.

“When she is awake and a bit clearer, I will tell her.”

Odin nodded, then placed a beefy hand across the swell of Frigga’s middle. She watched his face, chuckling lightly at the change in his face when the child moved beneath his hand. It was worth being kicked from inside, over.

“He is strong.”

“He’s your son, Frigga. He could not be otherwise.”

She smiled at him.

“Is he still keeping you up in the early night hours, before I come to bed? I had noticed the blankets strewn around when I arrived this morning.”

Frigga shook her head.

“No, I was merely warm, so I threw them off over the course of the night. Your son seems to be as much a furnace as his father.”

Odin smiled.

“Perhaps he will have your forgiving heart to go with my raging inner fire.”

Frigga nodded, feeling so tired and drained. With the treaty, planning for the party to celebrate her first child, preparing to have this child, planning in case Odin was needed elsewhere or if the treaty fell through and he must go off to war, worrying about Hela’s more erratic control, and taking on all the normal responsibilities of Queenhood, she had felt as if she had run 50 miles, every day by midday, and by the evening, she was ready to sleep several hours before she normally would retire.

Odin gently wrapped an arm around her, walking with her back to Bvita’s side. He helped her into the chair and removed his cloak, draping it over Frigga’s lap. Beside her, Bvita smiled with a small blush at the King’s tender care.

“Sleep if you need, Frigga. I am sure Bvita will rouse you if there is any word on Hela’s condition.”

Bvita nodded.

“I will.”

With that, Odin left. Frigga just did stay awake long enough to hear straight from the Healer’s mouth that Hela would be well after a couple days in the Healer’s wing. Frigga was lead in to see Hela, soon falling asleep in the bed next to Hela’s, with Bvita sending a message to Odin to let him know where Frigga was, so as to keep him from worrying when he returned to the chambers and found them empty.

~*~*~*~*~*~

The day after her accidental explosion, Hela woke to find herself in the Healer’s wing. Frigga had left a bit early, citing a meeting she needed to attend and that she had to bathe and dress before it and promising to have her midday meal with Hela. Bvita, Frigga’s servant and now friend, had stopped by to make sure Hela was well and to ask if she wished any books, scrolls, or her bedding be brought to her, to help her be more comfortable. Bvita was a sweet, if somewhat simple and naive, young girl. Hela envied her some days.

Swinging her legs over the side of the bed, Hela realized her dress was in tatters and her feet still bore soot stains. The Healers had probably been too concerned with the mostly-healed burns on her hands and arms, to worry over her dirty feet. Hela smiled. Their father would be aghast. 

“Lady Hela!”, cried one of the younger healers. A girl not more than 20-summers in age with hair like sunlight and cheeks as chubby and red as a ripe apple.

“Lady Hela, you are not to be up! You had a knock to the skull and you need rest.”

She came over, trying to gently usher Hela back into the bed and to lay down. Hela did not wish to lay, she wished to return to her rooms so she could bathe, dress, and try to figure out why she had lost control so terribly yesterday. She needed to know.

“I need to go to my rooms, young healer. I assure you, I am well enough.”

“No, Lady Hela, you mustn’t leave. You need to lie down, rest yourself.”

“Why mustn’t I leave?”

She saw the look. The young healer realized she had said too much, revealing some small tidbit of information Hela was not meant to be privy to. Hela instantly filled in the blanks. She was under some sort of restraint, meant to stay in her bed until Odin had made his choice about where she would be sent off to. There was no way he would risk keeping her close when she was causing entire rooms or walls to disintegrate or be blown to bits.

“Where am I to go to when I am finally permitted my leave, young healer?”

The girl looked stricken with fear, the color completely drained from her face.

“Where. Am. I. To. Go. Healer?”, Hela growled out.

“I do not know, Lady Hela. I only know that we are not permitted to let you leave until Odin’s escort arrives to take you to your new home.”

Hela wanted to scream. Many of the smaller objects around her began to rattle in place, including the blankets on the beds near her and even the chamber pot at the end of her bed. Odin meant to send her away. Not lock her off on the edge of the property, but to send her away. Away from Frigga, away from her books and scrolls, away from the freedom she enjoyed after so many years denied it by her own father.

Perhaps he meant to send her back to her father? Hela would not allow that to happen. She had sworn she would never go back there. Frigga had promised she would never let anyone send Hela back to their father, ever. No matter what, she had promised to Hela, there would be a place for Hela at the palace beside Frigga.

The blankets, chamber pot, and various other items all simultaneously shattered and came undone, their pieces flying everywhere. Hela stood, swaying a bit on her feet, and began the trek to Odin’s meeting room. This was his fault! He had turned Frigga’s heart against Hela the moment he planted his cursed seed within Frigga.

Guards tried to stop her, but she flung them aside with a small wave of her hand. When more came, she repeated the action, though she found they were being embedded more deeply into the walls, the closer she came to Odin’s meeting room. If Odin wished to see her untamed power, he would soon get his wish.

Then she felt it. The change in the air. Frigga. It was not just Hela’s power and magic causing chaos around her, as Frigga’s magic had joined hers, her power meeting Hela’s to try to stop Hela from driving the guards into the solid walls. Hela turned to face Frigga, her eyes blazing with betrayal, anger, and madness. Frigga almost fell at the sight of it, her knees threatening to buckle beneath her.

“Hela?”

Hela laughed, cold and angry.

“Come to beg for your husband’s life, Frigga?”

“I came to stop you from doing anything foolish.”

“Too late, dear sister. I already did that the moment I let father marry you off, and again when I let you talk me into staying her. I should have known better. You could not buck our father and you will not buck Odin. If that child you carry should be a son, you will fall under his will faster than a broken tree in a windstorm!”

“Hela, please?”

“I am nothing to you! You promised me, Frigga! You promised you would not send me away, you would not let them drag me back to our father! You lie!”

“No, you are not being sent to him. You are being sent to an estate just outside the city walls, the estate we celebrated your birthday at this past year. You would be just a short ride away, I could see you all the time. Please, Hela? Just stop this, let me take you to the estate?”

Hela shook her head.

“No more lies, Frigga.”

Suddenly, a guard came flying out of nowhere, a spear aimed for Hela’s heart. Hela heard him and spun around, letting her powers loose upon him. He disintegrated as if he had been no more than a pile of dust in the breeze. Frigga collapsed to the floor in shock as more guards came at Hela and she repeated her deadly spell on each of them. Frigga pulled up her shields as best she could, very much out of practice and still running on fumes after yesterday, trying to protect the men and to keep them from harming Hela.

Then, before Frigga could react, she felt the crackle of energy. As if lightening had struck her at her core. There was a blinding light and then nothing. Her body felt as though it were on fire, her mind blank from the pain, and her powers useless to her. She could faintly recognize Odin’s voice calling her name, Hela’s screaming, Bvita’s shouting orders in a tone Frigga had never heard the girl use before, and a healer- Ishari- who had been helping Frigga prepare for the birth of her child.

Frigga thought of her child. She had no idea what was going on, only of the pain she was in. She feared her child feeling this same pain as it came into the world. She feared Hela’s death. She feared what had become of Odin, those guards, Bvita, and the others.

Suddenly, Frigga awoke as she flew forward, gasping for breath. Bvita and Ishari came come her sides, helping her sit up and then holding her as she emptied the contents of her stomach into a basin. Bvita cleaned Frigga’s face with a damp cloth as Ishari took the basin away. Frigga’s entire body felt as if it had been torn to pieces then shoddily sewn back together. And she was seeing the images of a nightmare where Hela lost control and guards tried to kill her sister.

“Where is Hela?”

Ishari and Bvita looked at each other quickly, then away. Frigga knew it then. It had not been a nightmare. Hela had lost control and was a danger to everyone, including herself.

“Where is she?”

Bvita spoke up first.

“After she saw what happened to you, Frigga, she ran, cursing Odin’s name and all of Asgard. Odin and the Valkyrie search for her even now.”

Ishari brought a cold, wet cloth to Frigga’s forehead, and another to her neck.

“She has been lost to her power and her madness, my lady. They follow the wreckage she leaves behind in her wake. Odin has ordered her killed on sight, and for anyone in her path to flee.”

Frigga turned to Bvita.

“Bvita, please, please, send word to Odin to not-kill Hela? I could not bear to lose her.”

Bvita nodded, looking as if she disagreed while understanding Frigga’s request.

“I shall tend to it immediately, Frigga. Please promise you will do as Ishari bids while I am gone? Odin will have our heads otherwise.”

Frigga nodded, already feeling sleep clawing at her. Once Bvita had turned and left, Frigga settled back into the pillows and blankets, letting her hand go to rest over her child. Her heart stopped. Her stomach nolonger arched skyward but was nearly as flat as it had been before her wedding night, the weight of her unborn child did not trouble her bladder or spine, and she realized there was the sort of pain her mother had warned her to expect in the days following birth.

Frigga looked at Ishari, wondering why no one had mentioned her child yet. Why she had not heard the babe squalling for a meal or to be held, as newborns did. And why she did not hear any of the midwives or healers singing.

“Ishari, where is my child?”

The look on the old healer’s face said it all.

“We did everything that we could, my lady. Even Bvita tried to breathe life into him as she had seen done with horses in her homeland. He was blue when he came, going cold almost instantly after he was born.”

Frigga died, not her body, but her heart felt as if it were shriveling in her chest and dying.

“Bring him to me.”

Ishari looked fearful, struck still at the request.

Bvita returned a few seconds later, a small bundle in her arms. Wrapped in one of the blue and white blankets Frigga had only just finished weaving for her firstborn. Frigga held her sore, tired arms out and Bvita placed the bundle into Frigga’s arms with the care one would expect a kind woman to pay to an infant. Bvita did not act as though the babe were stillborn. Frigga pressed the child close to her, smelling his hair and skin, tracing his little ears and fingers. He had been perfect. He had Odin’s chin and her brow, Odin’s thick palms and her high cheekbones. Blond hair, full cheeks, ten fingers, ten toes, the picture of perfection, except that he was cold as stone.

When Odin received word that Frigga was alive and would most likely recover, he had been overjoyed. Then he watched the face of the man sent with the message. Frigga had given birth while in the throws of whatever Hela had done to her in her madness, and the child had been born dead. Despite this, Frigga had sent word to beg Odin not to execute Hela as he had intended to do. Tscalla, an old advisor of Odin’s father and like an uncle to Odin, inquired what Odin wished to do.

“Tell the Valkyrie to avoid, if at all possible, killing Hela. Hela must be brought to trial and given the most severe of punishments, though she is not to be executed.”

“She has killed the royal heir, Odin.”

“Yes. By accident and while not in her right mind. I should have been the one to tell her she was to be sent away, then she might have unleashed her venom on me and not Frigga or my guards. It should not have fallen to a healer’s young ward to inform a sorceress of her impending banishment.”

Looking at his surrogate uncle, Odin felt a weariness settle into his bones. He felt as if he had grown old in the last few hours. Two days ago, he had been a young king with a loving, kind, beautiful, happy wife soon to bear their first son, a treaty almost signed to ensure centuries of peace to raise that son in, a sister-in-law powerful enough to scare death itself, and a celebration to attend in a few days that would announce the impending birth of his son. Now he was a childless father who would go home to a wife walking the tightline between life and death, a stillborn son who would need a burial, and his sister-in-law had gone mad, killing anything in her path.

Tscalla stepped forward, putting a scarred, leathery hand on Odin’s shoulder. The concern in the gold eyes looking back at him, was enough to make Odin sway on his tired legs as Tscalla moved Odin into a nearby seat.

“I cannot bear to break her heart any further, Tscalla. Frigga has lost so much in only two days. I cannot add to that.”

Tscalla nodded.

“I will tell the Valkyrie. Odin, you do not need to be out here risking your life while we attempt to bring her down. Go home. Go to Frigga. She needs you now more than ever, and more than we do. And,”, the older man let out a long sigh, “you need her.”

Odin nodded.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Frigga woke again on the stone slab, breathing the dank and dead air of her prison. Reaching out with her magic, she could only barely sense Hela. At least that meant Hela had not yet escaped and gone after Odin, Thor, or Loki. Frigga thought about Loki. So much like Hela. All Frigga had wanted to do for he and Thor was to ensure they never knew the pain she and Hela had. That they would grow up together, knowing they always had each other if no one and nothing else could be counted on. That even after she and Odin were gone, they would have their brother there to watch after them.

And she had failed her sons just as she had failed her sister. When Loki showed the same instinctual, powerful gift that Hela had, Frigga had promised he would not come to an end like Hela’s. Loki would learn as Frigga had, he would be his brother’s right hand man and most trusted advisor, he would be Asgard’s highest sorcerer, and he would be happy. He would be trusted and cared for, loved by his family. And yet he had ended up under the control of Thanos, used as a pawn on Midgard, then imprisoned till the end of his natural life in Odin’s dungeons with Frigga forbidden from seeing him in person or ever holding him to her heart again.

Frigga heard Hela’s approach and let out a breath. She could do this. Thor and Loki needed her, and she had to survive whatever Hela threw at her. Her sons needed her, even more than Hela once had.

“Missing your precious brats and that oaf of a husband? Frigga, you could have been so much more.”

Frigga shook her head.

“So could you, sister.”

Frigga felt the pressure across her body as it held her more tightly to the slab, pressing as if a great marble door had fallen atop her. She tried to breathe and could not. How she could be dead and gasp for breath, she did not know, and yet it was happening as she struggled to free herself. Then it lessened back to what she had been feeling since she arrived.

“I am the goddess of destruction, pain, and death. How could I possibly be more?”

Frigga looked at her.

“We could have been more, we could have been sisters and advised Odin, we could have saved lives, averted wars together. You could have tutored Loki with me as Odin tutored Thor.”

Hela sneered.

“Thor, your eldest?”

Frigga nodded.

“He dies first.”

Frigga fought her prison as she reached out, trying to find the edges of the barrier. She needed to be free. She had to get to her sons, to Odin. Together they could handle Hela. Together, they could save her sons from dying at the hands of their very own aunt, their own flesh and blood.

Hela leaned in, tracing a finger across Frigga’s forehead, causing it burn at it had when Frigga nearly died all those years ago because of one of Hela’s spells. Hela chuckled at Frigga’s pain, though Frigga’s concentration did not waver. She would get free and save her sons.

“How do you like my new clothes, Frigga? You always were so particular about my appearance. I spent an age down here, perfecting it. I had begun working on it before you announced you were carrying Odin’s spawn. It was meant to make sure I would not harm you with my magic, to tamp it down to a more manageable level. Then, after I left and before Odin caught up with me- before I slaughtered the bulk of his mighty Valkyrie, I figured out a better way to use the suit. To focus my power, rather than cutting it down. So you see, dear sister, my time has been well spent down here. I am now more focused than you ever were, and I don’t even have to think about it.”

She traced her finger across Frigga’s forehead again, as if pushing a stray lock from Frigga’s face. Frigga squirmed, though she did not lose her concentration on finding a weak spot. The barrier would not stop her from protecting those most precious to her. She pushed out a little further and prayed.

Then Frigga found it, the barrier. All she had to do was give it a small nudge, and it broke under her magic. She had done it! Now all she needed to do was figure out how to get off the slab and get to Odin. Perhaps while he was in his Odin-sleep, she could send him a message.

Hela laughed, increasing the pressure on Frigga. Then Frigga realized her mistake, only again, she was too late to remedy it.

“Thank you, sister. I have waited an age for you to die so you could let me loose, or didn’t Odin ever tell you that was the key to my getting out of here? He knew that you would be protected at all costs and that he would have centuries and centuries to figure out how to keep me here after you and he were gone, only then there was a war with the Jotuns and then he was taking care of his sons and there were so. Many. Wars. All those souls brought down here to be my new playthings. And Odin thought he had more time. So thank you, Frigga. I’ll give your regards to your sons and to Odin.”

Frigga screamed as Hela laughed. Frigga could not believe it, she had pushed wide the gates between her sister and her sons, and her sons would die because of it. Frigga shook her head. No. With a single-minded determination she had not felt since the day she birthed Thor into the world of the living, she pressed with her magic, pushing back against Hela’s restraints.


	3. Ending Of Ragnarok

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Possible ending of new movie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for your patience in how long it took me to go from a one-off, to a three-piece fanfic. I hope you all enjoyed the ride!

Odin stood an old, tired, failing man before the goddess of death. He had known for an age that she would come for him. He had only prayed that when she had gotten her revenge on him by killing him in some horrible fashion and sending him to a prison instead of Valhalla, that Frigga would be able to appeal to Hela’s heart and have her spare their sons. Instead, Frigga had died a couple years ago, their sons’ relationship was as fractured as Frigga and Hela’s had been, and he was a half-blinded old man before a destructive, mad goddess.

Hela grinned as she stood before Odin, atop a hillside that let her look down at him. Thor- the golden warrior and eldest child of the King, lay on the ground with his hair sheered and armor ruined, his forehead bleeding and chest heaving. Loki- the baby and Frigga’s favored son, lay nearby in much the same worn and bloody condition, though with a feral look in his eyes that Hela knew very well. She had seen it in the mirror for centuries before she was banished to her prison.

“I am the goddess of death! What were you the god of again?”

Odin did not stand proud, as she had expected. Instead, he fell to his knees, then a bit forward, his one arm keeping him upright. Thor looked as if he wished to spring forth and help his father, while Loki’s eyes were focused only on her. Smart boy.

“Frigga begged me not to kill you, Hela. From her sickbed as she lay, almost dead from your magic, she still pleaded for your life.”

Hela laughed.

“Yes, so I might serve as a cautionary tale and she would not incur the bad luck of killing a royal relative.”

Odin shook his head tiredly, showing every bit of his weariness and age. He looked haggard and Hela delighted in it.

“No. She said she could not stand to lose you too.”

“What had she already lost, Odin? Your adoration? Her perfect complexion?”

“Her child.”

Hela glared at him, the air crackling all around them.

“What? Her child lays not ten feet from you, Odin, false king and traitor.”

Odin shook his head, his arm giving out so he had to fall back, sitting upon the ground, his legs crookedly sprawled at an odd angle.

“No. Thor is our second child, a gift we did not expect. No, the son she carried when you went mad, died as a result of the spell you flung at her. The spell that nearly killed her, sucked the life from our firstborn before he ever drew his first breath. Bvita held him for hours before Frigga woke to learn of the loss. He was born blue, dead.”

Loki looked over at Odin. Frigga had given birth to a child before Thor, one born blue and dead. Blue, like Loki had been. He caught himself thinking of Frigga’s face as she had seen him for the first time, if she had looked at him to see a Frost Giant’s offspring, or if she had looked at him and seen the child she lost. Now Loki hated the woman before him as he had never hated before.

“You lie!”

“No, Hela. I do not. We sent him off to Valhalla before we ever celebrated his birth. Dead before he could live. And yet, Frigga still pleaded for your life.”

“Why did she not come to my trial?”

“She was still recovering, they were not yet sure she would survived, and even if she did- she was thought to be barren, and she was too weak to see to our son’s funeral. She could not bear to look at you, Hela. She felt she had failed you, that this was all her fault, and she was sickened by it. I would not have allowed her to come, even if she had been physically able. If you must have revenge, I beg you, take it from me. Leave Thor and Loki be. Do not rip the life from another of Frigga’s children? Do whatever you please with me, I will not fight you. Spare them?”

Suddenly, the ground around them shook and split, Odin and Hela were on one side, Thor and Loki to the other. The ground split again as lightening struck it, opening another chasm. Odin reached for Hela’s hand. Thor moved forward, meaning to catch their father as Loki ran, tackling Thor to the ground with all his might. Hela took Odin down with her into the chasm, the ground closing up after them, only the scorched lines to prove anything had occurred.

“Why did you stop me?”

Loki panted as he looked up at Thor from where he still lay flat on his back. Thor looked ready to throttle or kill anything that came too close, and after all the fighting, traveling, and running they had done the past week, Loki did not have the energy to fight Thor.

“I have lost my mother and Odin, and learned of Frigga’s losses. I could not forsake you again, brother.”

Thor looked at him, shocked. Then he held out a beefy hand to Loki. Loki took it, letting Thor pull him to his feet. For a moment, Thor just stared at him. He could see all the emotions going through his brother’s eyes. Eyes that, while of the shade of Odin’s remaining eye, were more like Frigga’s than Loki had ever before realized.

“Know this, Loki, I could not have killed you. Ever. No matter what I said or what you did.”

Loki nodded.

“I think part of me counted on it.”

“Whatever is left of Asgard, will you return to it with me? At my side, as my brother in all things?”

Loki nodded.

“I cannot promise to be a good brother or to always be there, I fear I am too unsettled and too restless for such a task.”

Thor gave him a small smile.

“You will always have a home, and a brother, waiting for you in Asgard. That I can promise you, brother.”

Loki smiled.

“Do you think she’s happy?”

Thor did not need to ask who Loki was referring to.

“I think she would be upset that father could not do this without dying, but I think she would be overjoyed to see us as brothers again.”

Loki nodded.

“Let’s go home, Thor.”

~*~*~*~*~*~

Frigga paced in the prison, trying to figure out how to escape, except Hela came forward. She was not clad in the ghastly green and black suit with her horned helmet, and instead wore a simple pale green grown with a familiar black and spring green belt at her waist. Her hair was loose and flowing a smile gracing her lips, looking ever inch the girl she once had been.

“Frigga, I owe you more than any apology could cover. Odin awaits you in Valhalla, as does your firstborn.”

Frigga shook her head.

“You wanted them dead, and in here with me.”

“Odin told me about Bolder. Your firstborn. I killed him.”

Frigga nodded.

“You did.”

“And yet you did not hate me.”

Frigga shook her head.

“If I had paid you more attention, done more to help you, it would not have come to what it did.”

Hela shook her head.

“You are not to blame, sister. I am. Our father is. Our mother. Not you. Not Odin. Now come, you have a husband to guide and a son to meet, and in years to come, when they are old and tired heroes, two more sons to join you.”

“Loki cannot join me, he is a Jotun.”

Hela smiled a sneaky smile.

“He believed himself Aesir and he has proven himself worthy, unless he screws it up with another ill-fated coup, he will join you, Odin, Bolder, and Thor.”

Frigga nodded.

“What about you?”

“I am not yet relieved of my guilt, Frigga. Someday, perhaps, when I have earned it- I may come close enough to Valhalla to see you again.”

Frigga flung herself forward, hugging Hela.

“I am so sorry I couldn’t save you.”

Hela smiled, hugging her back.

“No, Frigga. You did save me. Please know that.”

Frigga nodded, then Hela let her go.

“Go on. I’ll be along in time.”

Frigga walked off, feeling the sting of tears as a door appeared in the barrier and Odin stood on the other side of it, two eyed and a whole, young man again, his hand out to her.

“Come, my love?”

She smiled, outstretching her hand to take his, finding she too was once more youthful and weightless.

“Of course, my king.”


End file.
